


Not Today

by ShiryaW



Category: Sense8 (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-17
Updated: 2015-06-17
Packaged: 2018-04-04 20:11:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4151280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShiryaW/pseuds/ShiryaW
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Only a handful of things were certain in their lives: that they were here, that they would eventually pass from this world, that they would always have one another. But for no apparent reason, Riley has not spoken to the rest of them for a while. Some of those things were more certain than others, it seemed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Today

Nobody knew her like this. No parts of her, that is. Strangers, acquaintances, people she needed without wanting them, those knew her as nothing but. Her other selves, however, all felt the tingling sensation at the back of their minds they had in common, an itch they couldn’t scratch that told them something was missing and they could not find out what it was. The only thing they were aware of was that Riley wouldn’t talk to them anymore.  
  
Every day she got home and took off her hat and her jacket but she was still too hot. So she took off her shirt, too, and then her pants, and her underwear, but none of it was enough, none of it changed a single damn thing. The smell of sweat and prison and Indian cuisine lingered in every single molecule she came into contact with like a disease. Wearing herself had become difficult for her. With every step she took the weight of her own skin dragged her further down. With every breath she took she felt as if she were really inhaling empty air eight times at once. Every song she listened to resonated in her ears at eight times the right volume and she snatched off her earphones and threw them against the wall, watching as the circular plastic band snapped in half. Her father found her on her knees in the living room with tears streaming freely down her face as she wondered whose strength broke her little treasure, because it wasn’t hers. When she came home the very next day she found the exact same pair of headphones still unpacked on her desk with a note that read: “It’s only teenage wasteland.” Another part of herself found its way unopened into a drawer, but later she snuck up on Gunnar and wrapped her arms around his neck, and he reached behind to pat her head.  
  
The tearful smile she gave Will when he looked back at her from the mirror spoke a thousand apologies that didn’t know why they were uttered and she wiped the glass with them, her own face smiling back at her afterwards. Back in his apartment in Chicago, Will cursed loudly – albeit just in his head – and Kala asked him to please tone down the language because she was trying to focus and his screaming was making her drop things and Will, good grief, this is the sixth time today! And Lito, he was doing better than ever shooting a particularly intense scene that day, so much so that much later at the premiere his costar admitted that at times he would be so committed to the role he scared her. The movie was a tremendous commercial success.  
  
One time Riley saw Wolfgang staring up through her window from the street. She shut the blinds with trembling hands and ran downstairs to do the same there, to lock the door and turn on the TV loud enough to stifle any possible sound of knocking, but even when she closed her eyes she knew he was looking at her. She tripped over her own two feet running back upstairs to hide under her bed like she used to when she was a child and the tree cast a shadow on her sheets in the middle of the night. Even though she had grown considerably since those days she could easily curl up and wrap her arms around herself. That was why there had never been monsters under Riley’s bed – she had colonized the premises long before any witches could have hatched. And now she _knew_ and she despised herself for thinking of witches while her chest heaved and a snake curled around her ribcage trying to suffocate all that fear they were watching. Wolfgang could have visited her in her home, but he didn’t.  
  
Everyone knew. At first it had comforted her to know she was not alone. Over time, though, the truth kicked in. The pain she had felt that never truly left but instead remained nestled comfortably among scattered pages of the diaries she kept when she was a teenager lay naked and open for them all to witness again and again as she did, to perceive, and to _feel_. It burned her throat and tore her apart. Riley kept running around her world – her own world – in panic, frantically searching every nook and cranny for gaps between the walls. Close it down, wall it up, surround it with traps, she thought. Circle it with police tape, she thought, like you would a crime scene or a dangerous underpass. Only investigators allowed. Serve and protect, she told herself, and Will punched a wall with Sun’s fist for putting that thought in her head when that really, really wasn’t what they meant by that, in America or anywhere else.  
  
But then something changed.  
  
She was making pancakes in the morning when she saw her. Nomi was sitting there in her kitchen chair, her blank eyes staring into the white space between the oven and the cupboards. For the first time in quite a while Riley’s pulse didn’t quicken. Instead she turned the stove off and tiptoed towards the woman on curious feet with her head tilted to the side just a bit and a mug of hot cocoa in her hand.  
  
Nomi’s head snapped up when the mug entered her line of sight and she jumped. “I thought I was alone.”  
  
“Me too,” Riley smiled. “But it’s the perfect day for a cocoa in two, I think.”  
  
“It’s fucking freezing here. Every day is the perfect day for a cocoa in two.”  
  
“That’s what makes it so appealing,” Riley nodded.  
  
And then she was sitting on Nomi’s couch and staring down at the eviction notice on her desk. Amanita wasn’t home yet. Riley’s heart sank along with the sense of security she – they – had worked so hard to construct again. A different kind of cold brushed against her shoulder, one that seeped through her veins and turned her blood to stone. This cold she couldn’t hide from behind a woolen hat and a thick wall. This cold promised a bitter reunion outside in the snow. She turned to Nomi and rested her hand on her shoulder. “Hey, I have a really comfortable bed. And it’s big enough for two people. And I’ve checked under it many times and I can almost guarantee there are no monsters.”  
  
Incredibly, something close to a laugh vibrated in Nomi’s throat as she remembered all the nights the other girl spent reading under her bed with a flashlight, and the time she fell asleep there and in the morning poor Gunnar was calling every family friend scared out of his wits before she crawled out yawning in her pajamas, Sven the leopard tucked safely under her arm. “Riley, I don’t think—”  
  
“I know. Now go on. My dad always says the sun shines brighter above an empty mug.”  
  
Once Nomi opened up, one by one, they all visited. Capheus shared stories of the days and nights he’d spent in his bus surrounded by armed delinquents but knowing Jean Claude’s spirit would never falter. He would always wake up taking the same, delicious breath of fresh morning air, and get the feeling he was going to have a really good day. Wolfgang rolled his eyes but couldn’t hold back a crooked smile, upon which Kala playfully swatted his arm. Lito went on about the courage in their hearts and Kala asked what movie that was from, and the man defended himself because come on, man, I’m trying to be profound here, this is real, this is the truth and you know it.  
  
“Everyone’s truth is just what they imagine it to be,” Sun commented dryly, sipping cocoa that Riley had fixed her up with in the meantime, much to the others’ chagrin – and Lito’s displeasure.  
  
It was hard to maintain a somber mood with so much life flowing in them. Soon enough smiling wasn’t such a chore anymore. Riley’s gaze met Will’s unapologetically as their hands touched once more, letting him know there would come a day when she would talk about it and be content with more than being needed. There would come a day when she would unlock the door, unseal the gaps, and tear down the tape behind which the monsters she did acquaint herself with over the years lurked waiting to hunt down the old and the lame. There would come a day she would want someone to become conscious of the discrepancy between her and her reflection in hopes that smiling wouldn’t be such a chore anymore.  
  
That day was just not today.


End file.
